Iris Projects

In Focus: Tunnel by Safeya Sharif Safeya Sharif’s commission for @dubaiculture and @rta_dubai transformed Dubai’s tunnel walls into an open canvas. Developed through the study of shifting sand dunes, tracked via satellite imagery to observe rapid environmental change, the work translates patterns of movement into a public artwork embedded within the city’s infrastructure. Sharif’s intervention reflects Dubai’s evolving identity through landscape, motion, and time. Safeya Sharif is currently on view at Art Dubai Special Edition, 14–17 May. 📍 Booth C12 #SafeyaSharif Photo: Dubai Culture/RTA

Now Open: Iris Projects at Art Dubai Special Edition 2026 Marking the 20th anniversary of Art Dubai, Iris Projects presents a dual presentation in the Galleries section featuring Safeya Sharif (b. 1999) and Alyazia Al Nahyan (b. 2000). Bringing together two emerging voices from Dubai, the booth unfolds as a dialogue between material transformation and spatial perception. Sharif’s wall-based sculptures examine architectural memory and perception through forms shaped by shifting topographies of desert landscapes. Al Nahyan’s paintings, created using pigments derived from organic matter, unfold as atmospheric abstractions that reflect cycles of growth, decay, and regeneration. 📍 Booth C12 14–17 May 2026 Images: Installation views of Iris Projects booth at Art Dubai 2026 © Ismail Noor at Seeing Things.

In Focus: ‘Each Time a Star Goes Astray’ by Nasser Al Salem. Al Salem’s installation reflects on the historic relationship between desert communities and the sky: a dialogue shaped by movement, observation, and memory. Inspired by Bedouin poetry in which a wandering star returns in search of its path, the work recalls forms of navigation rooted not in maps, but in lived knowledge of constellations, terrain, and time. Its metal surfaces, a medium Al Salem often works with, are inlaid with Murano glass that captures and refracts light, allowing the installation to shift as the viewer moves around it. Resisting a fixed point of view, the work evokes earlier ways of navigating the desert through memory, intuition, and the stars, reflecting on a moment when both human and cosmic orientation feels uncertain. 📆 May 6 – November 22, 2026 📍A Necessary Fiction: Maps, Art & Models of Our World, Abbazia di San Gregorio, Venice Image: Each Time a Star Goes Astray Installation by Nasser Al Salem © Courtesy of Artist and Iris Projects. Images by @gazellastudio Gazella Studio. #nasseralsalem #venice

Iris Projects is pleased to announce the representation of Dhabia Al Qubaisi (b. 1999, UAE). Based in Abu Dhabi, Al Qubaisi is an artist working across painting, mixed media, and textiles. Rooted in research and lived memory, her practice draws from the subtle gestures embedded within everyday life, constructing works that act as vessels of presence. Al Qubaisi’s figurative language resists direct portraiture. Through silhouettes, outlines, and atmospheres, she evokes an aura of presence, reflecting on how memory persists beyond physical likeness. Central to her practice is the domestic sphere as a site of knowledge and transmission. Drawing on narratives of women in the region, Al Qubaisi explores time as cyclical and embodied. Pattern, repetition, and textile become both structure and language forming a dialogue between material, memory, and feminine lineage. Image: Dhabia Al Qubaisi Photo © Ismail Noor of Seeing Things.

Coming Soon: A Necessary Fiction 🌍 Maps, Art, and Models of Our World 📆 May 6 – November 22, 2026 📍Abbazia di San Gregorio in Venice This exhibition brings together historical cartography and contemporary practices to explore how we map, interpret, and reimagine the world around us. At the heart of this dialogue, Nasser Al Salem presents a courtyard installation that reflects on maps as more than tools of navigation. They become poetic systems, tracing harmony, spirituality, and the unseen structures that shape our understanding of the universe. Bridging the past and present, early maps are placed in conversation with contemporary works, revealing how representation, myth, and knowledge intertwine across time. #nasseralsalem

Art Dubai Special Edition For the 20th edition of Art Dubai, Iris Projects returns to the fair, bringing together two emerging female artists from Dubai in the Galleries section for this year’s Special Edition. Both women bring forward a bold new language - Safeya Sharif Al Awadhi (b. 1999 UAE) through the architecture of illusion and Alyazia Al Nahyan (b. 2000 UAE) through the alchemy of organic material. Art Dubai 2026 will take place from 15–17 May 2026. #irisprojects #artdubai

Open now: Déjà Vu at Concrete, Alserkal Avenue. Iris Projects is pleased to announce its participation in Déjà Vu, a collective exhibition bringing together 20 of the UAE’s leading contemporary art galleries, conceptualised by @alserkalavenue 📍Open everyday, 10:00am to 10:00pm at Concrete, @alserkalavenue 📆 On view until the 8th May The show unpacks the absurdity of repeated cycles, historical mis-matching, memory glitches, and language slippage. We are pleased to present works by @jumaalhaj from his 2026 series ‘Silence in Repetition’, alongside video installations and works on paper by @ammaralattar_new . The exhibition also features @studionasseralsalem sculptural piece ‘Just Another Day’ (2025), in addition to @sh_o mixed media work ‘Untitled’ (2026). The exhibition is curated by Kevin Jones - Director of Strategy at Alserkal (@junipermind ), Nada Raza - Director of Alserkal Arts Foundation (@nada_raza ), and Zaina Zaarour - Curator & Manager of Programmes at Alserkal Avenue (@zinazarour ), in consultation with participating galleries. #irisprojects #alserkalavenue

Iris Projects invites artists, writers, poets, photographers, designers and creatives from across the UAE to contribute to a collective exhibition and publication documenting this moment. This initiative aims to preserve the memory of this historic moment, one that is still unfolding, through artistic expression. Presented by Iris Projects, this project reflects on what it means to record, interpret, and carry forward a moment that is still in motion. Selected works will be presented in an exhibition and published in 2026. Submission Guidelines: • Deadline: 18 May 2026 • One submission per participant: any medium (photo, drawing, poem, text, sketch, illustration or mixed media) and in any language. Work made during Feb-May 2026. • Format: High-resolution image or scanned work • Information required: Full Name, Age, Nationality, City of Residence Submit your work to: [email protected] All submissions will be reviewed and approved by a selection committee. Decisions will be made according to internal curatorial criteria, ensuring that each work contributes meaningfully to the collective memory of this period. #irisprojects

In Focus: Shamsa Al Omaira The work sits within the space of inward looking; not as a clear act of self-recognition, but as something more fragile. What emerges is not a complete reflection, but a contained uncertainty, a space where the self is encountered in fragments, softened, and continuously becoming. There is no fixed image here, only a quiet, intimate negotiation between what is seen, felt, and what remains just out of reach. Images: Untitled, 2026 by Shamsa Al Omaira © Musthafa Aboobacker of Seeing Things #irisprojects # ShamsaAlOmaira

In the Studio: Ammar Al Attar Ammar Al Attar is a leading figure in the UAE’s contemporary avant-garde movement, creating multidisciplinary work across performance, video, sculpture, installation, painting, printmaking and photography. Based in Al Dhaid, Ammar Al Attar uses rituals, architecture, everyday actions, and found objects to explore local culture, while his performances and repeated mark-making reflect on memory, surveillance, and the relationship between people, objects, and space. Artwork: Ammar Al Attar, Sibeel Water II, 2013. Image: Ammar Al Attar. Photo © courtesy of the Artist & Leo James Photography #irisprojects #ammaralattar

In Focus: ‘A White Ascent’, by Abdullah Al Othman Al Othman’s interdisciplinary practice draws on his experience in Saudi Arabia, blending traditional motifs with Western influences to explore tensions between desert and city, vernacular architecture and consumerism, and cultural heritage and everyday life. Through research-driven, narrative-based works, he examines humanity’s relationship with natural and built environments, creating realistic yet fictional scenarios that use storytelling to illuminate the human experience. Images: ‘A White Ascent’, 2025 by Abdullah Al Othman © Musthafa Aboobacker of Seeing Things #irisprojects #abdullahalothman

In Focus: ‘Pictographs (Yellow)’ series by Rashid AlAraifi Bridging architecture, drawing, and object-making, Rashid AlAraifi’s practice explores the space between built form and collective memory. Rooted in the landscapes of the Arabian Peninsula, his work captures fleeting narratives and regional histories, translating them into a distinct visual language that merges architecture, drawing, and object design. Images: ‘Pictographs (Yellow)’, 2020 by Rashid AlAraifi © Seeing Things #irisprojects #RashedAlAraifi